Now, my children, I cannot explain what this signified, but Master Richard could get no further than that.  I know that I myself cannot say any of the prayers of mass when I am away from the altar, and other priests have told me the same of themselves, but it seems to me very strange that a man should not at any time be able to say paternoster.  Whether it was that Master Richard was sick, or that the officer’s face troubled him, or whether that God Almighty desired to put him to a grievous test, I know not.  But he could not say it.  He repeated over and over again, Paternoster ...  Paternoster, and swayed as he stood.

The officer’s face grew dark and a little afraid; he blessed himself three or four times, and breathed through his nostrils heavily.  Master Richard felt himself smiling again, and presently fell to laughing, and as he laughed he perceived that the men who held him drew away from him a little, and blessed themselves too.

“I cannot help it,” sobbed Master Richard presently, “to think that I cannot say paternoster!”

When he had recovered himself somewhat, he perceived that the two other men were come up behind him.

Then the officer bade him turn and look, and he did so, with the tears of that dreadful laughter still upon his cheeks.

The two men were standing there; one had a great hangman’s whip of leather in his hand, and the other a rope.

“Now, sir;” said the officer behind him, “here is enough authority for you and me.  Shall I bid them begin, or will you tell us what it is that you have done to the King?”

Now, Master Richard had nothing to tell, as you know; he could not have saved himself in any case from the torment, but our Lord allowed him to have this trial, to see how he would bear himself.  He might have cried out for mercy, or told a false tale as men so often have done, but he did neither of these things.  The laughter again rose in his throat, but he drove it down, and after looking upon the men’s faces and the arms of the man that held the whip, he turned once more to the officer.

“I have scourged myself too often,” he said, “to fear such pain; and our Saviour bore stripes for me.”

Then (for the men had released him that he might turn round) he undid the button at his throat, and threw back the kirtle, knotting the sleeves about his waist, and so stood, naked to his middle, awaiting the punishment.

He told me afterwards that never had he felt such lightness and freedom as he felt at this time.  His body yearned for the pain, as it yearned for the sting and thrill of cold water on a cold day.  When he was telling me, I understood better how it was that the holy martyrs were so merry in the midst of their torments. [Sir John relates at considerable length the Acts of St. Laurence and St. Sebastian.]....